


In which Hawke is jealous

by kmfillz



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age Kink Meme, F/M, Jealousy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-28 04:30:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10071557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kmfillz/pseuds/kmfillz
Summary: Hawke is jealous of Bianca. Cassandra understands before Varric does.(Fill forthis kink meme prompt.)





	

The weirdness starts when Bianca shows up in person with the news about Corypheus's red lyrium source. Oh, Bianca can be daring when she wants to, but it's not like her to personally deliver a message that could have been conveyed by letter with much less risk to all involved. She brushes his questions about it off with teasing, and before he can press the subject the Inquisitor interrupts. From then on it's all business. Corypheus, red lyrium, the end of the world... You know, the usual.

As soon as her Inquisitorialness agrees to send a team to investigate, Bianca leaves. That's the smart thing for her to do, but it's at odds with her decision to come all the way here. Did she want to see him or not?

Two hours later he's sipping an ale in the Herald's Rest, still trying to puzzle that one out. Bianca's long gone by now, having departed Skyhold anonymously in a caravan of Orlesian cloth merchants. The Inquisitor has tasked Varric with assembling the expedition, and he has already requisitioned a squad of Chargers from Curly. Now he's kicking back with a drink while he waits for a key member of his team to return. It could be days before the hunting party is back; he has time to ponder Bianca.

Cheers and whoops at the door interrupt his thoughts.

"All hail the Hero of Orlais _and_ the Emprise!" shouts Hawke, dragging an embarrassed looking Seeker behind her.

Over the heads of their retinue Varric sees a pair of sharp horns duck through the doorway behind them. Further contemplation is out of the question. As the jubilant throng claim tables and order libations in honor of their victory, Varric picks up his drink and makes his way to the Champion's side. A long arm is tossed around his shoulder, and Hawke pulls him in to join the celebration.

One more dragon has been slain, one more town saved from depradation by the valiant warriors of the Inquisition. The story is related to him with many flustered interjections from Cassandra, who is adamant that she did _not_ slay this dragon, nor did she slay the other dragon before that. No matter the reason, Cassandra squirming uncomfortably reliably cheers Varric up. He lays aside the subject of Bianca and her mission until late into the evening, when he seizes on it as an excuse to separate Hawke from the Iron Bull.

Put Hawke and the big grey guy in a room together with drinks and wait long enough, you'll inevitably end up with a fight on your hands, if not an all-out brawl between Charger loyalists and the Champion's many admirers. Sober, the two of them get along like two peas in a rambunctious pod, but drunk Hawke harbors a grudge against the Qunari Empire which manifests as a general belligerence toward its local representative. Varric has never seen Tiny start the fight, but he never backs down from a challenge. One incident resulting in broken ribs was all it took to convince Varric that intervention was required. When Hawke's taunts toward the oxman begin to grow barbed, he extricates her from the crowd and drags her up to the battlements to discuss their upcoming expedition.

Hawke is displeased -- to put it mildly -- to learn the source of Corypheus's red lyrium. The string of profanities she releases echo his feelings on the subject exactly. The sickly feeling of responsibility that he's been dodging since he first heard the news settles over them now like a pall.

"The tome. The chantry. Meredith. Corypheus. The red templars," Hawke counts off on her fingers.

"Is there any trouble in Thedas that _isn't_ our fault?" The chuckle accompanying his words is not particularly humorous.

"Carver's bad attitude," Hawke suggests.

He raises his bottle in a toast. "To Carver!" They drain the last of their drinks.

"So," Hawke says, breaking the glum silence that follows, "we pack up, slouch over to Ferelden, and delve into the Deep Roads once more?"

"No actual delving this time. Bianca will be waiting for us by the doors of Valammar with a cleared path."

It takes a while for him to realize Hawke is staring at him.

"'Bianca', eh?"

Oh, right. He'd forgotten to mention that part. He grunts an affirmative, and tenses for the penetrating questions that are sure to follow, but there is silence from his companion of the past ten years.

Shortly after that, they wish each other a good night and retire.

* * *

The expedition leaves Skyhold the following afternoon. They've picked up a tag-along in the person of Cassandra, who has business in Redcliffe. The three weeks on the road pass about as pleasantly as you'd expect three weeks of cold air, hard ground, and bad weather to pass. After two blessed nights of sleeping in real beds in Redcliffe while Cassandra conducts business, they continue on to Valammar.

Hawke is uncharacteristically quiet after they leave Redcliffe. He's heard barely a dozen words from her all day when they draw to a halt in front of the massive dwarven-inscribed gates. 

"Ah, the Deep Roads." Hawke sighs nostalgically. "How I've missed the stench of darkspawn."

"Hey, don't forget the frisky deepstalkers."

Varric hates the Deep Roads with every fiber of his magnificently fibrous being. He's ventured down them twice in his life, and those were two of the worst experiences he's ever had. He only survived them thanks to the woman currently standing by his side. He'd never brave the Deep Roads without her, not even for Bianca.

He breathes one last breath of fresh air and pushes through the gates into Valammar.

_A Champion, a dwarf, a Seeker, and five mercenaries walk into a lost thaig..._

All eight of them jump when Bianca steps out of the shadows.

"Finally! I started to think you weren't coming!" Her tone is frazzled, and from the corpses that litter the entry way, he can understand why. Carta. It figures. Wherever there's lyrium smuggling, there's the Carta.

"Nobody said you had to hang out in the creepy cave while you waited," he points out.

"Well, I did wait, so let's make this quick. These idiots are carrying the red lyrium out in unprotected containers. We don't want to stick around long enough for it to start 'talking' to us."

A shiver runs down Varric's spine, and he's willing to bet the same goes for Hawke. The other people here have heard what the whispers of red lyrium can do, but he and Hawke have seen it first hand.

"Just lead the way," he tells his favourite smith.

"Suicidally dangerous jobs are our specialty," Hawke chimes in. Hawke has a real gift for reassurance.

The first danger they face is crossing a long bridge across a bottomless chasm. In all fairness to dwarven engineering, the bridge does not appear to be crumbling, despite having been abandoned more than eight ages ago. But would it really have been too much trouble for his ancestors to build guard rails?

While he is cursing his ancestors, Cassandra is conversing with Bianca.

"How _did_ you discover the red lyrium in this thaig, Bianca?" 

That one is on him. "I told her." Three sets of eyes swivel toward him. "Right after the expedition--" he nods at Hawke "--I wrote and told Bianca what we found. We had artifacts that needed buyers, and she had more contacts that would pay for them." _Plus, I owed her,_ he didn't say.

Hawke stops suddenly.

"Carta up ahead!"

Cassandra turns to Bianca. "Can you handle yourself in a fight?"

Varric's lip twitches in amusement. Can she handle herself...

"No, I thought I'd cower helplessly while you do all the work."

"Stick to what you're best at, I always say," Hawke interjects, unnecessarily, as she readies her staff.

"Bianca's a decent shot," he tells Cassandra, drawing the other Bianca as he speaks.

Bianca is offended by the understatement. "'Decent'?"

"You want me to admit you're better than me in front of Hawke?"

A look passes between Bianca and Hawke that he can't interpret at all. Then the Carta are upon them.

* * *

When the final Carta goon has been put out of her misery, Bianca directs them up the stairs.

"So this is what you do now, Varric?" she asks.

"Beg pardon?"

"Skulking around in caves. Shooting people. Is this your day-to-day?"

The gulf between them feels wider in this instant than it does when they are a thousand leagues apart. He wouldn't call shooting people a hobby, exactly, but he's been following Hawke around for a decade doing exactly that. A pastime? "I usually try to avoid the caves," he confesses.

"What about you?" Hawke asks Bianca. It sounds like simple small talk, but there's an odd note in her voice. "What's your day-to-day?"

Bianca hesitates longer than the question deserves. "I tinker."

Now who's understating her accomplishments? "I heard some of the guild were trying to get you named a Paragon for that contraption you invented."

"That's not going to happen. Even if I am ten times the smith Branka ever was. A surfacer Paragon? Never." Her laughter is bitter. Her family cling to the traditions of Orzammar with all their might as if by refusing to accept their exile they can undo it. But in the eyes of Orzammar, all surfacers are alike, casteless scum far beneath the notice of their sodding Memories.

"I have a new workshop, by the way," she tells Varric. "You'll have to stop by and see it before Bogdan gets back from Nevarra."

"Who is Bogdan?" Hawke breaks in again. This isn't small talk. This is information gathering.

"My husband," Bianca says, like those two words are the easiest in the world.

Varric's fingers clench around his crossbow. He forces himself to relax them.

"I'll see what I can do," is his response to Bianca's suggestion. "You know your family will kill me if I stop by, right?"

"Why would your family kill Varric?" Shit. Now the Seeker's interested too.

Bianca ignores Cassandra. "They're not going to kill you," she reassures him. It would be more reassuring if he didn't know that wasn't true.

They descend through ruins and darkspawn, uncomfortable conversation following them all the way. The path ends in a set of heavy gear-driven doors unlike the elegant but simple stone slabs on the ruins they've passed.

"I built these doors," Bianca explains. "They probably shut this one from the other side when they heard the ruckus we were making."

Hawke tilts an eyebrow. "Just how much time have you spent down here?"

Bianca is irritated. "You already know I've used this entrance in the past. I built the doors to keep rivals from following me down here and arranging 'accidents.'"

She crouches down to do something he can't see to the complex mechanisms. After a moment, the door opens spontaneously.

"Ta-da!" Ever the show-off.

Hawke sweeps past her through the open doorway. "You know," Hawke says without turning around, "I've only met two people who spent significant amounts of time around red lyrium." That odd note is back in her voice. "Eventually I had to put both of them down."

Whoa there. "Let's not issue any death threats until we've done what we came here to do."

He can't see why Hawke is being so hostile. Bianca is exhibiting none of the telltale paranoia, object levitation, or statue reanimation that are the signature characteristics of the red lyrium psychosis they've seen. She understands the proper way to handle (or, to be accurate, not handle) red lyrium. He made certain of that before he gave her the location of the thaig.

Four hours later, Bianca's deception comes out. It's Varric's fault as much as hers -- if only he'd told her about Larius, if only he'd never given her the thaig -- but Bianca's conviction that she can "fix" this, as if it were one of her machines, reawakens a lot of old hurt. He's never been good at walking away from Bianca, but right now it's that or say something he'll regret.

Hawke has no such reservations. She's been ranting about Bianca for more than an hour when he snaps, "Enough!"

The remainder of their journey to the surface passes in heavy silence.

* * *

Sunlight and fresh air lift him out of his funk the following day. He trades jokes with the Chargers, even manages a halfway civil conversation or three with Cassandra. Talking with Hawke, however, proves to be as risky as navigating a Carta hideout blindfolded. Every conversation somehow ends with Hawke running down a list of Bianca's perceived faults. It's incredibly frustrating. _Varric_ is less obsessed than she is, and he's only been in love with Bianca for the past fifteen years!

By nightfall he's keeping his distance from Hawke for his own peace of mind. After a contentious meal she and the others strike up a card game. Judging by the cackling sounds that drift past on the evening breeze, Hawke is cheating shamelessly. He sits by the fire, mulling over her behavior. It's been weird from the start. He's not the kind of fool who expects all of his friends to get along -- two minutes in a room with Fenris and Merrill would cure anyone of that -- but he wasn't expecting Bianca and Hawke, of all people, to clash so badly or so instantly.

The Seeker sits down next to him. "Hawke cheats," she announces with disgust. Ha! Called it.

Her observation prompts him to consider whether an outside perspective might be of help. Cassandra is no expert on the subject of Hawke, but she's an enthusiastic amateur, and he's getting nowhere on his own.

"Has Hawke seemed 'off' to you at all lately, Seeker?" he inquires.

"You mean aside from the cheating."

"No, that's normal Hawke. I mean this thing of hers about Bianca."

"Varric," Cassandra says in a long-suffering tone. "Did you honestly expect the two of them to get along?"

She says that as if this friction were somehow foreseeable. "Why wouldn't they get along? Bianca's great. Hawke's great. They're both perceptive, fun, smart, beautiful, laid back. They have so much in common."

"One of the things they have in common is you."

"Yes, like I was saying: they're remarkably perceptive, they both have an excellent sense of humor..."

Cassandra clears her throat, so he lets her speak. This time she sounds incredulous. "You seriously did not expect any jealousy at all?"

That throws him. "What's to be jealous about?" They're both geniuses in their respective fields, but Hawke has never shown an interest in smithing, and Bianca's about as likely to duel an Arishok as Vivienne is to ask Solas for fashion tips.

Cassandra's reply is a non sequitur. "Do you still have feelings for Bianca?"

"That's none of your business, Seeker."

Cassandra is exasperated. "You asked for my advice, Varric."

"Fine. Yes, I still have feelings for Bianca. It's... complicated between us. But what does that have to do with the price of nugs in Orzammar?"

She raises her eyebrows. "You still have 'complicated' feelings for your old flame, and yet you expect your lover not to be jealous?"

Varric stares at her in bafflement. She's looking at him like he's a complete moron, which he has to admit is a change of pace from looking at him like he's something she scraped off her shoe.

Then it clicks. He starts laughing. Cassandra glowers.

" _Hawke_? You think Hawke and I are _lovers?_ " Tears roll down his cheeks. This is too good. "Wherever did you get an idea like that?"

Cassandra stutters that from the way he and Hawke looked at each other, she had assumed...

"Hawke and I are just friends."

Cassandra looks uncertain.

"Would I lie to you?"

"Yes!" Oops. Touched a nerve there.

"Well, I'm not lying about this."

Cassandra studies him for a long moment before relenting. "Then I stand corrected. I apologize for making assumptions."

Varric snorts. She looks at him sidelong.

"...But Hawke is nevertheless extremely jealous of your feelings for Bianca."

The conversation is over, and he's more confused than when it began.

* * *

A week on the road cools Hawke's passion for twisting every topic to Bianca, to Varric's immense relief. If that had been all that was bothering him, he would have left well enough alone. But Cassandra's words stick with him. _Hawke jealous of Bianca..._ It's a ridiculous assertion, on the face of it, and yet something about it gives him a funny feeling, like he's on the edge of some sort of revelation.

Unable to shake the thought from his mind, he decides to ask Hawke directly what she thinks of Bianca.

Hawke, equally forthright, replies that, to be honest, she's not a fan.

No shit. "And why exactly is that?"

"Why should I be?" She waves off his glare. "No, really, Varric. Please explain her marvellous, uniquely loveable qualities. At length. Because in ten years you have said not a single word about her, ever. Even when asked. Repeatedly." The smile on her face is the one she wears in battle. The one that says, _Try me, and pray you live to tell the tale._

The first part of what she's said is technically true. Varric promised Bianca never to tell the story of their affair, and he hasn't. The second part isn't true in the slightest. Hawke asked him about Bianca exactly once. He dodged the question, and she never asked again. Which, come to think of it, was remarkably respectful given Hawke's insatiable curiosity about everything under the sun.

He supposes he should cut her some slack. The Seeker was wrong: Hawke isn't jealous of his feelings for Bianca. She's jealous that he's kept Bianca a secret.

So for the first time in his life, he tells someone the story of him and Bianca Davri. How they met. Why he fell in love with her. How they nearly eloped, and why they didn't go through with it. He doesn't add any of his usual narrative flair. The bare facts are painful enough. He tells Hawke about the clan war they almost started, about the guilt that still weighs on him. He tells her about the decade and a half of letters and half a continent of separation. By the time his story reaches the present, Varric feels fragile, ready to crack.

In the silence that follows, that feeling of _almost-but-not-quite_ spurs him to ask, "Remind me, Hawke. What was it you didn't like about Bianca?" Tipping over the edge will be a relief.

Hawke looks away sharply. She stopped smiling a long time ago, and he can see the glint of tears in her eyes. He knows it's an unfair thing to say, but over the past week his feelings have been rubbed raw. He doesn't give a shit if he's being unfair.

At last, Hawke responds. "Are you still in love with her?" It's the same non sequitur Cassandra made.

His tongue sticks in his throat when he tries to answer the question sincerely, so he falls back on Cassandra's accusation.

"Why? Are you jealous?" He still thinks the Seeker was full of shit, but it makes a passable taunt.

Hawke makes a choking sound. She isn't facing toward him, but he can see her face crumple.

This has gone horribly wrong.

"Fuck. Hawke..." He trails off, not knowing what to say other than her name. "Hawke."

"I am _insanely_ jealous," Hawke whispers.

"I really think think I might be mad with it," she adds, and the combination of forced levity with a breaking voice adds unfortunate verisimilitude to the joke.

"Hawke, I'm..."

"If you say 'I'm sorry', I will scream," she warns him.

"Shit."

"Yeah."

* * *

For the rest of the day Varric walks in a daze. Hawke had fallen in love with him, and somehow he hadn't noticed. He combs through his memories, trying to identify when the change happened, but nothing outside of her jealousy toward Bianca stands out. Even now, she's dried her eyes and is starting to smile and joke with him as if nothing happened. He's never thought of Hawke as a particularly subtle person --brave, witty, glorious, but never subtle -- and yet this one part of herself she keeps utterly invisible. Her act is so flawless that by the end of the journey he is half-convinced he imagined the whole encounter. Hawke is seemingly unchanged and unchangeable, like the heroine in a pulp fiction serial.

They're relaxing in the Herald's Rest after the journey when the question slips out of its own volition.

"How long have you been in love?" He doesn't say _with me_. They both know what he's talking about.

Hawke freezes. "I really couldn't say."

"Of course not." He nods and changes the subject to how many Orlesian merchants it takes to empty a chamberpot.

The joke gets a laugh from Hawke. Then she says abruptly, "The Deep Roads."

"The Deep Roads what?"

"I've been in love--" _with you_ "--since the Deep Roads."

For a minute he thinks she means their recent trip through Valammar, but then he realizes she's talking about Bartrand's expedition.

"Andraste's tits! Nine years?!"

She kicks him. "You're one to talk. How long have you been mooning over Bianca?"

He opens his mouth to say, _That's different,_ but the lie catches in his throat. They've both spent a long time pining for someone they can't have.

She rolls her eyes at his unvoiced protest. "Don't worry that I'll get a new staff blade and name it 'Varric'. You have the market cornered on that particular brand of romanticism."

Something in his chest constricts painfully. He never wanted to be Hawke's Bianca. He never wanted Hawke to be in an unrequited love story at all. Hawke is an adventure heroine. She's meant to be desired by all, with a girl or a guy in every port. And who wouldn't desire her? Every inch of her is desirable. Her eyes, her mouth, her hair, her hands, her smile, her breasts -- even her long legs, if you imagine them wrapped around you in the throes of passion.

(He's imagining it right now.)

"My eyes are up here, Varric."

He barely notices her words, because now his mind is racing back to what Cassandra said. _I've seen how you two look at each other,_ she had said. Not _how she looks at you_. Exactly how many things about his life did the Seeker understand that he hadn't?

Hawke says if he's going to look at her like that, they're going to need a private room.

"I have a private room," he says, distractedly.

She stares at him. "Are you joking?"

"I would never joke about a thing like that."

"If you're toying with me I will set your crossbow on fire. And that's not a joke."

He laughs and pays their tab.

"I'll have Fenris rip your heart out of your chest and mail it to Bianca in a paper bag," Hawke continues, as they cross the courtyard.

He raises his hands in surrender. "Threatening to set Bianca on fire was plenty, Hawke."

"You realize that's the first time in a month you've said that name and meant the crossbow?"

She's using different words, but he recognizes it as the same question she asked him before: _Are you still in love with her?_

The answer is easier than he thought. "I haven't written to Bianca in years," he tells Hawke. It's true, and he hadn't realized before, or hadn't been willing to admit it: the passage of time has taken even Bianca from him.

But it has also brought him Hawke, and so for the first time he might be ready to forgive it.

"I haven't slept with Isabela in months," Hawke counters.

"Isn't she getting serious about that elf of hers?"

"Like I said: no sex in _months_ ," grumbles the woman in his arms.

"Let's get you a refresher."

**Author's Note:**

> In which I am upset to discover stories need titles and summaries on AO3.
> 
> Some of the dialogue in Valammar is copied straight from the game. Not my work, can't claim credit.


End file.
